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Taking Back Sunday @ Stage AE (6/13/22)

Raise your hand if you've ever had filled notebooks with lyrics from "Cute Without The 'E' (Cut From The Team)". Or, if you freaked out when they guest starred on your favorite Canadian teen drama, 'Degrassi: The Next Generation'. Then you could imagine my anxiety as I watched the sky turn dark and the stage crew began to cover the floor lights in plastic bags. For the record, the ticket did say ‘RAIN OR SHINE’ and so the show must go on. Anyway, Taking Back Sunday was one of the very first bands to introduce me to the emo scene. To this day, 'Where You Want To Be' remains one of my favorite albums of all-time. I barely caught a bit of their performance at the 2015 Fashion Meets Music Festival in Columbus, so I’ve never actually got to enjoy their set in its entirety. Fortunately for me, I was in for a real treat. They opened with "Tidal Wave” followed by jumping right into the opening track off my beloved WYWTB, "Set Phasers to Stun." Back in the day, there was the feud between Jesse Lacey (frontman of Brand New) and Adam Lazzara, and Brand New trolled TBS by printing "...because mics are for singing not swinging" on some of their merch (mocking Lazzara's famous on-stage mic swinging). I can happily share that not only does he still do it, but it was everything I dreamt it'd be. Be still my little emo heart. Everything was going so well until I started to feel the rain. I made a beeline for the merch tent and paid for the overpriced hoodie I secretly wanted but didn’t want to justify buying. It turned out saving my camera from some of the most spiteful rain I’ve ever seen, sowell worth it because its shelter was the reason I got to stand in the crowd and enjoy the show as a fan and not just a photographer.

Photos and words by: Mollie Crowe